W08 Challenge: Yellowstone

Tyson Brost - 3/01/2024

Model Building:

This week the focus was on introducing the ModelBuilder tool. We first applied it to a few of week 6’s mini challenges as an example, and then used that knowledge to apply it from the start for a new set of data and criteria.

Methods:

Data Name	Current Coordinate System
Bisonwntr	Unknown
fire_perim	NAD 1983 UTM Zone 12N
yell_facilities	NAD 1983 UTM Zone 12N
yellowstone_fire_starts	Unknown
YNP_boundary	NAD 1927 UTM Zone 12N
YS_Roads_27	NAD 1927 UTM Zone 12N
YS_Roads_83	NAD 1983 UTM Zone 12N

Bison Map

This data initially had no defined GCS and so needed to be defined with Define Projection. Since it was collected originally in NAD 1983, once defined, it was not necessary to reproject the data

Fire Starts Map

This data initially had no defined GCS and so needed to be defined with Define Projection and then I could use project to get it to display properly on a map. Since it was not originally defined in NAD 1983, after it had been properly defined as WGS 1984, we needed to also reproject it to NAD 1983.

Fire Perimeter Map

This data needed no changes as is was already correctly defined in the proper GSC an PSC.

Facilities Map

This data was incorrectly defined and needed to be redefined with Define Projection and then re-Projected in NAD 1983.

YNP Boundary Maps

Clark 1866

North is up

Equidistant Conic

North is to the right

NA Equidistant Conic

North is up and to the right a bit

WGS 1984 UTM 12N

North is up

Roads Map

The measured distances I calculated roughly averaged about 200 meters of N/S error. Referencing against the basemap, it seems that the NAD 1983 layer is most correct.

Shaded Relief Map

What is Projection on the Fly

Projection on the fly is a temporary process used by ArcGIS when a layer and a map have conflicting coordinate systems and temporarily reprojects data onto a new projection so that it can match the maps coordinate system.

When does Projection on the Fly not work?

If your data has been improperly defined or undefined GCS then Proj. on the fly will still attempt to reproject the data but since it is wrong in the first place, the projection on the fly will also be wrong.

What Proportion of fires start within a 5 mile radius of major roads in YSP?

I would first need to create 5 mile buffer around the roads layer, and then create 2 new feature layers, one for an intersect/clip between roads and firestarts, another for an erase between roads and firestarts. then I could compare the number of observations (lengths of the attribute tables) for the two resulting firestarts layers and divide by the total number of firestarts.

Part 12 PLSS

• Sec 7 T55N R112W has an area of: 633.5 acres

• The center point of this section has a latitude of: 44.75927 and a longitude of: -110.404709
  

Data Sources:

• Include a list of data and their sources.

  • ESRI Basemap

  • Data from Class Download